My Sundown
by Jiwwy
Summary: I like this... A series of songfics, about Super angsty!draco getting a conscience, stopping Hermione in the hall, and telling her he's sorry. Chaos ensues, of course. Short Angsty Sarcastic and Romantical. Chapter 3 up, and it's COMPLETE. Fast end but...
1. My Sundown

*******

**_My Sundown_**

*******

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I step carefully along the wall, muttering my new mantra aloud. Sure, it isn't a lot, but if you're as bad as me, you've got to take stuff step by step. Little by little, you know? I want to change, and you've got to start somewhere. 

Never thought you'd hear that from me, did you? Draco Malfoy, wanting to change. Ha, it's a joke, isn't it? Mr. Slytherin Posterboy, Mr. I-Hate-You-You-Stupid-Mudblood-You, Mr. Amazing Bouncing Ferret.

What, you think I don't hear what they say? Well, you are just the ignorant one, aren't you.

****

**_i see it around me  
i see it in everything:   
i could be so much more than this_**__

I don't know when it started. Well, yeah, of course I know when it started. It started half an hour after I was born, when Father walked into the maternity ward, sleek and composed, straight from a business meeting. Mother refused to hold me, she was mourning her figure because it hadn't yet gone back to chic anorexia, so the nurse showed me to Father.

"Is that what I dropped my 3:00 for?"

Aww. Isn't he just Father of the Year?

Ever since then it had been a big goal of mine to please father. He never really took too much to me at all. Most of all he did was hire tutors and nannies for me. I guess I never noticed the huge billboard Father's behaviors suggested that was sitting in front of my face screaming "DRACO MALFOY YOU ARE BEING NEGLECTED AND YOU ARE UNLOVED" in neon green. I was four, for crissake, and even if Father didn't have time for me he must have made sure that I was being spoiled and, now that I think of it, brainwashed. 

About when I was seven he realized he had a son and took to introducing me to old Death Eater friends and Dark Arts dealers. Still not quite award material, sorry Lucius. Try again next year. 

**_said my goodbyes   
this is my sundown   
i'm going to be so much more than this_**

At Hogwarts, I was surprised. There _was _an outside world! My god! 

The first people I saw on Nine and Three Quarters were Goyle and Crabbe. Damn them. I thought they had no brains at all, but they must have some sense of smell or something because they managed to recognize me.

Mind you, it wasn't that I didn't want to make friends with Death Eaters' sons! By golly gee, if anything would please Daddy Dearest that would! But Death Eater or not, those are they most irritatingly… moronic imbeciles on the face of the earth. On the evolutionary scale, somewhere between toast and erasers. Sharp as marbles, about fifteen players short of a Quidditch match- you get my point here? Hey, you're smarter than I thought. 

There was Potter too. He hated my guts. Nothing I could do to stop that at the time though, not much incentive either. He was on the _wrong side_. 

My saving grace at Hogwarts was Professor Snape. Father had told me how very unfortunate it would be that he would be one of my professors, to stay away from him. Of course, Severus was on the _right_ side, but he was a little off. When the Dark Lord was in power, his loyalties were shaky. He did the right thing, staying on _our_ side, of course, but father really never liked him much.

Severus knew right away I was different, could be willed, had potential. He knew… I wasn't my father.

There was also _her_, of course… but _she_'d never… never think about me.

This lack of connections—this is why it would be so easy to change. At least, easier.

Breathe in, breathe out.

****

**_with one hand high you'll show them your progress   
you'll take your time   
but no one cares_**

**_no one cares_**__

What was that?

A yawn, a tapping of hard shoes on the stone floors. Someone else was up? I moved into my robe pocket, hoping to get to the pad of points slips they issued prefects. "Who's there?" I called.

"Don't mind, I'm a prefect."

Ah, okay then. Like me. Prefects were allowed 10:00 pm curfews, a half-hour longer than the other students. But that voice. It was familiar. It was-

"Malfoy?" a pair of curious brown eyes glinted in the moonlight flooding in from the windows. I only now realized how bright it was- a full moon cast my shadow on the cold slate inches from my body. "Oh yes, you're a prefect too, aren't you." There was distaste in her voice.

"Nice to see you too, Granger." I say sarcastically, then mentally slap myself. Bad Draco. New leaf, new leaf, new leaf.

She rolled her eyes and tossed a frizzing lock of sepia over her shoulder. "Just because you're a prefect doesn't meant I can't take house points for mouthing off to another one, you know Malfoy."

_Bite her back Malfoy! Be saucy!_ I glare at the windows, amazed by the dorkiness of my inner voice. Hermione stands there. "What?" I snap after a few seconds.

"You didn't say anything. Usually you'd have had me crying by now." She said this surprisingly snidely.

"Well, I didn't want to say anything without your body guards here."

She leans against the windows, diagonally from me. "What are you doing here anyway, Granger?"

_Call her Hermione, for the love of god,_ I beg myself. Something like instinct and habit glares back at whatever part of me said this.

"I was doing some reading in the library."

"Surprise surprise!"

She sighs. "It's been fun Malfoy. Well, more fun than a roomful of boggarts… almost…" She stood up straight and started down the hall again, her hair swooshing back and forth on her back.

**_i need you to show me the way from crazy   
i want to be so much more than this_**__

"Granger, wait."

I can picture the look on her face as she pauses. I can sense her closing her eyes in annoyance, can hear the sigh of aggravation from thirty feet away. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

I turn around slightly, stare out the windows with my back to the wall. "G- Her-mione…" Breathe in, breathe out. "Msry."

Did you forget to breathe in?

"What?" She turns on her heel, finally facing me.

I shove my hands in my pockets. "I'm. Sorry. Hermione." I try to articulate the best I can, but these were words I had- until now- never, never used… Well, okay, I used "I" a lot, but other than that.

She freezes, stock-still. Half of her face is illuminated, half of her lip being bit. "Um. It's… it's… okay."

"No, Hermione, it isn't okay." I look at my expensive boots, the one thing my brain can agree on, then decide if my entire brain can agree on it, it must be wrong, so to Old Draco's supreme discontent, I meet Hermione's eyes. "Everything I've done to you, and… and to Weasley and Potter… that's not okay."

"Draco…" She takes a step forward.

"No. It's just not, and part of me says no it's not, and part of me says there's nothing I can do about that, and part of me says there's… there's… everything I can do about it. I don't know. I just want to kick that first part out or I'll go mad."

She stares. "What are you saying… Why are you saying this to me?"

**_with one hand high you'll show them your progress   
you'll take your time   
but no one cares_**

****

**_with one hand high you'll show them your progress_**

**_you'll take your time_**

**_but no one cares_**

**_no one cares_**

**_no one cares_**

**_no one cares_**__

"Because… No one cares." And that would be juuust about EXACTLY the WRONG thing to say! _Good job, New Draco!_

I kick myself. _What were you saying, Old Draco? _"And." Boots. Wow, those are some nice boots, Draco… No, look at her. You're on a roll. "I… like you, Hermione."

She's frozen again.

"Shit. I'm… sorry." My tongue's starting to hurt with all this sweet mushy crap. "Hermione, I just—if you… I just. I… I won't bother you anymore." Yes, that's about most of what I wanted to accomplish, wasn't it? "So… g'night. Or… whatever." I stand up. My legs hurt from the sudden rush of weight on them, but I can make it to the common room.

**_I can be so much more than this_**

**_I wanna be so much more than this_**

**_I could be so much more than this_**

**_I wanna be so much more than this_**

**_I wanna be so much more than this_**

**_I wanna be so much more than this_**__

"Wait, Draco!" It's her. Oh god. I stop, but I don't turn around. 

"Yeah?" I grunt. Wow, romantic.

A pause. Then a touch on my shoulder. Oh good god, she's going to hit me. 

_You deserve it. _Says Old Draco.

_I know. _Says a defeated New Draco.

The pressure on my shoulder increases, until I turn my head around to see what she's doing. At the same time, she leans forward.

My first kiss.

Breathe in, Breathe out.

_Good job, New Draco._

**_good good bye, tinsel shine   
good good bye, i'll be fine_**

**_good good bye   
good good night_**__

****

**_***_**

Song by Jimmy Eat World. I own Hermy, Draco, My Sundown, AND Jimmy Eat World. 

… Just kidding. Ahahah. You believed me, didn't you. You clever little toasty eraser you. By the way, if you don't have My Sundown by now, you aren't my friend. You have to review anyway, though.


	2. For Hermione

A/N: Written with a brownie in my hand and a Coke on the desk. I don't think it fits with the song as much as My Sundown; please tell me what you think. Thanks so much for the reviews.

****

**_***_**

**_For Hermione_**

**_***_**

The fire's nice. 

A very simple thought. It contrasted nicely with all the damned homework the teachers pile on for the weekend, and made me think about a break. I sit in the chair closest to the fire, but I'm not warm. The books are absorbing all the heat.

I toss the books resting on my lap to the floor carelessly. If Hermione were here she'd-

"Ron? What are you doing up?"

A face loomed out of the darkness near the portrait hole. The winter-pale skin of her face is the only thing I can see against the darkness of her hair and the walls. "Homework." I answer as I stoop closer to the fire.

"You'll burn yourself that close to the fire, Ron! What are you doing, homework so late?"

I twitch my nose. She's right, it already feels hot. I decide not to answer the homework thing. "What are you doing out, Miss Prefect?"

An obvious pause.

"Nothing."

Oh god. "Real smooth Hermione."

"Ron," she pleads.

"What were you doing?"

She stops behind me to pick up my fallen books. "You should be more careful with the texts, Ron," she mumbles distractedly.

"Hermione." I turn around without standing up and stare at her. "The last time you were like this was before the Yule Ball, when you wouldn't tell me you were going with Krum."

Another pause. "Ron, what are you, jealous? You're my… friend."

 "Jealous? You mean you were meeting someone." Her last sentence hits me. Hard. Ouch.

****

**_And when you said I could not stay with you_**

**_That's not the way you would have wanted to be_**

**_Convince yourself that everything is alright_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

She looks behind me into the fire, her eyebrows knit and her chin crinkled like Ginny's does when she might cry. "Please Ron, I wasn't meeting anyone, I was at the library." 

"Who the hell is it, Hermione?"

"Ron. I was at the library. Please don't do this. I don't… I don't know what you think we are, but… all I want is to be friends."

"Cor." I jump up and grab my books from her hands. "You… I… I don't know about you Hermione. You think you're so clever. I don't… You don't know what's right, though. You know logic. I've never known you to know love." I glare at her one last time before storming towards my dorm. I run into a lamp and bang my toe. Have to remember to wear shoes in common room.

"Ron." She whispers, I don't know how I hear her. I don't know even if I do hear her, or if it's a sick nightmare. "Ron, Draco stopped me in the hall."

Vomit in… 3…

"He said he was sorry for anything he's done…"

…2…

"And… we kissed."

…1.

"Good god almighty Hermione Granger!" I explode instead of throwing up. Seems a bit cleaner, I think. Everyone in Gryffindor Tower has now been startled awake. "You absolutely have got to be joking!" I knew she wasn't. Hermione isn't one to joke… I wonder what she'd do if I had an aneurysm at that moment. "I thought you couldn't go any lower than Krum! I just… you deserve better than him."

"Ron, please," she begs silently.

"I'm going to bed."

****

**_Don't sell your heart and break just anyone_**

**_I want to run with you through moorland fields_**

**_Convince yourself that everything is alright_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

"Ron?"

Great, Harry's awake. "Yeah."

"What are you doing… what was that yelling?" I hear him sit up, and he turns on the light. "Hermione saw I didn't have my homework done g'nightgoingtobed."

I flop my face into the pillow. If he asks anything else I can't hear him.

**_~~~_**

The next day's Monday. I get up with the usual school spirit… yeah right… and immediately twitch and throw myself back on the bed and try not to remember that nasty, horrible dream.

"Ron?" Hermione walks in without knocking. I know what she'll say and I feel like crying. "Ron, pretty pretty please don't tell anyone. I don't even think it was a very big thing. We just… yeah… and he said goodnight and left."

I'm glad she didn't say the k-word. I don't say anything.

"Ron, please get up. You have to eat."

I roll over. No one said I was mature.

"Ron!" she suddenly stands and drags my comforter off me. I moan and curl up into the fetal position. 

"I really really really don't need to talk about your love life with Draco Malfoy over breakfast, Hermione." 

I sense her glare. I glare straight ahead and hope she senses that. "You aren't supposed to be in here Hermione."

"Ronald!" She walks around to the other side of the bed and I roll over again. She crawls on the bed and flips my shoulder on the bed so I'm lying flat. "Ron. Viktor or not. Draco or not. You. Are. My. Friend. Why you can't accept that is beyond my comprehension, but that's the way it is! End of story!"

"I'll tell Harry!" She cocks an eyebrow. I only now realize the happy fact that Hermione is in bed with me but decide not to mention it. "Hermione… I'm sorry, okay? I just… don't… you aren't good with knowing what's right for you when it comes to boys." Both eyebrows go up. This is the wrong way to start. "I don't want him to hurt you." I finish lamely.

"Ron, please. I won't get hurt. I don't even know where I stand with him. Just… let me try this. Please. If it doesn't work out… I'll marry you."

**_(A/N: Let's hope it works out, right D/H Shippers?! *is mean to Ron*)_**

I sigh and look down at the velvet sheets. She's definitely going to get hurt. But I smile, like a good friend should, and hold out my hand. "Deal."

****

**_So take your lessons hard and stay with him_**

**_When your car crash comes, don't be mislead_**

**_Convince yourself that everything is alright_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

****

**_So take your lessons hard and stay with him_**

**_And when your car crash comes, don't be mislead_**

**_Convince yourself that everything is alright_**

**_'Cos it already is_**

**_Yeah it already is_**

At breakfast she acts like nothing happened. She even sends me death rays with her eyes when I ask Harry in hushed tones for his answers in Transfiguration. I smirk smugly at her as Harry hands them to me under the breakfast table, and she kicks me with her hard-soled Mary Janes right where I stubbed my toe. Harry asks no questions. I imagine he was still just half asleep last night anyway.

Hermione glances over at the Slytherin table every now and then, biting her lip, waiting for a look from Him. About the fourth time she grins and blushes. Maybe throwing up wouldn't be a horrible idea anyway.

She can live her life, I suppose. When he hurts her, she can't say I didn't warn her. I just hope she doesn't plan to go steady with Goyle next year.

Bad image.

Where's Moaning Myrtle's toilet when you need it?

**So take him home**

**So take him home**

**So take him home**

**Take him, Take him home**

**Take him, Take him home...**

****

**_***_**

For Nancy is a great song by Pete Yorn. You. Download. Now.


	3. Disarm

A/N: I think it ends too fast, but I had to do it. I like the ending anyway, so whatever… This song was perfect to start from where I left off _and_ wrap it up… I just got it, and realized how great it was for this. ^_^ Might put it in Runaway too.

This chapter's less funny than the other ones, it actually has more plot than angst (!).

****

**_***_**

**_Disarm_**

**_***_**

"Draco?"

I roll over on the cool cement wall to face the voice. It's March, but it's still so, so cold. I always asked her why we had to meet outside, but the answer was obvious. Muggle-born know-it-all Gryffindor… Pureblood elitist Slytherin. Hmm!

It's her. She looks like a goddess, her winter-pale face broken by dark tendrils of mahogany and blood red lips, parted gently to let out the visible wisps of air she breathed. She smiled and came closer to me.

I tried to wrap my arms around her, to warm her over her trench coat, but my arms won't work. They just… won't… work. She puts a scarlet-gloved hand to my stiff arms and stares up at me, trying to read my proven unreadable expression. "Draco, are you alright?" she whispered, her face full of genuine concern.

I smiled, a very fragile smile, and I know she can tell I'm faking, but wouldn't she have known by now every action-- and lack thereof-- of the last week was forced? 

****

**_Disarm you with a smile_**

**_And cut you like you want me to_**

**_Cut that little child_**

**_Inside of me and such a part of you_**

**_Ooh, the years burn_**

**_Ooh, the years burn_**

She gulps. Yes… yes, she's noticed. "Draco, something's wrong, isn't it?"

I finally wrap my right arm around her back and touch her face with my left, studying her in return. How could she understand how it is? 

"It's Dad."

Hermione's eyebrow twitches downwards. "Draco… he hasn't found out about us… has he?"

"No… it's just…" My hand involuntarily clenches the waist of her robes, and I can't look in her face. "The Death Eaters, Hermione. It's a given that I'll be one of them. I didn't know it would be so soon."

An audible gasp.  "No…" her voice is shaky, and I think I feel her shiver in my arms.

"Mione, there isn't shit I can do.  My opinion here means nothing. It's… my future."

"No." She says again, more firmly. "No, no, no. I'm not having that happen to you."

She's so sure of herself. I don't know whether to smile down at her will, or slap her to see if she'll get some sense knocked into her. She just stands there, chin jutted defiantly as if I was my father and she was reprimanding him on this at this moment. "I'm not having this shit, Draco, we're going to Dumbledore."

She cussed. Wow. Hermione never cusses. I've taught her well.

"Hermione, you have even less say in this than I ever will. If we go to Dumbledore, they'll kill my father and then the Death Eaters will kill me, probably you too, come to think of it." I tried to say this in a conversational tone. She shouldn't know how much this hurts me; it will only make it harder on her and that's the thing in the world I want least.

"And if you go with the Death Eaters, Aurors will kill you. If I don't first." She also states this quite simply. I glare down at her for stealing my techniques. She glares back up. "I will, don't even think I won't."

~~~

****

**_I used to be a little boy_**

**_So old in my shoes_**

**_And what I choose is my choice_**

**_What's a boy supposed to do?_**

**_The killer in me is the killer in you_**

**_My love_**

**_I send this smile over to you_**

Two months.

In two months we'd be out of school, and then I'd be in the Dark Lord's inner circle. 

Why, god, why couldn't my father just have been a freaking broomstick vendor? I remember… Don't ask how I can remember this, I was only one, but I can, and the memory is crisply imprinted on me… back when I was micro-Draco, my first memory was father crying as he read the Daily Prophet. I swear, Lucius Malfoy was actually crying. The article was "The Boy Who Lived…" He got over his sadness quickly.

…I just remember him seeing me watching him in the doorway of his library and running to me. He picked me up by the scruff of my little neck and lifted me six feet in the air. Don't be mistaken; this wasn't any muggle father, playing 'aeroplane' or whatever with his son.

"Draco. You must avenge your master. At any cost, when you grow up, boy, you will avenge… your... master."

I started to cry, and he was about to put me down, but at three feet in the air he decided it was too far to stoop the rest of the way so he just dropped me. He stepped right over his crying child and went to talk to MacNair. A house elf scampered to me and helped me after a few minutes. 

That was the longest conversation my father and I had for a year or so…

Now, however, I was fifteen, sixteen this summer. Maybe… was Hermione right? Could she possibly be? I look up at the staff table. There's Dumbledore, in his usual breakfast spot. His eyes are turned to the Gryffindor table. He smiles wide and holds his glass out. I follow the direction of it and see Harry Potter in that direction. Harry has his cup out and seems to be making a toast with Dumbledore.

Hermione is sitting next to Harry, she's laughing. The light from the stained glass windows lights up her face, and she looks gorgeous.

A Death Eater doesn't deserve her.

I don't deserve her…

A red head high above the others at the table is bobbing up and down, apparently laughing. Ron Weasley takes Hermione's hand, and she lets her hand stay under his for a while. I glare, willing him Patented Draco Malfoy Psychic Venom, and he actually senses me and turns, and I can see his knuckles go white from holding Hermione's hand too hard. He turns and glares at me angrily. I might cry, if it were possible for me to.

Hermione stops laughing as she watches him turn, and then she snaps her hand away from his. Across two tables I can hear her yell at him. She turns to me and gives me a pleading look, and I feel so sad, but I force a smile, despite all my _fond_ memories of my past. She then beams, taking my look totally the wrong way, and I want to melt, half from the force of her love and half from the force of my contradictions. 

****

**_Disarm you with a smile_**

**_And leave you like they left me here_**

**_To wither in denial_**

**_The bitterness of one who's left alone_**

**_Ooh, the years burn_**

**_Ooh, the years burn, burn, burn_**

Clack, clack, clack, clack. My footsteps seem unearthly, like soft background music in the tirade of burning thoughts in my head.

_Go back Draco, just go back and be whom you're supposed to._

_Go on Draco, go and be who she wants you to be… who you want to be._

Who I want to be… 

I looked around to make sure this was the right place, and once I was sure, I sat down in front of the gargoyle, and I wait for Dumbledore.

I think I fell asleep, after about forty-five minutes… of just sitting there. My bum was so sore and my back felt like if I ever moved it again it would snap into two tidy pieces. The whole time I waited I was troubled by my father's words, his letters from home describing my future, telling me what I would be, how I'd be it, and all the other things I would never let him control.

Most precisely… what Hermione wouldn't let him control.

Dumbledore finally appeared. He let me in his office and we talked. I think we had only been talking for a short time, but it _must_ have been at least two weeks we sat in there. He was respectful, and listened to everything I had to say, and never interrupted, and when I was finished, he told me what could be done. I could go into hiding, or I could be a spy, like Severus had.

I'll be going home on the train at the end of the term. After the initiation ceremony, Severus and I will pass the information of the next Death Eater raid to Dumbledore…

I will _die_ at the raid.

…After I "die," I shall be spending the next two summers with Albus, being schooled in private in Hogsmeade until I graduate, unless something better can be worked out. He will let me visit Hermione when I want, under disguise of course. 

I couldn't think of a happier way to spend the next two years, of course. And at the end of school, who knows what will become of me. Dumbledore says whatever I choose to do_, lay low_.

I suppose being a muggle movie star with Hermione at my side wouldn't be the worst job ever… It isn't like I don't have my experience in acting, of course…

****

**_I used to be a little boy_**

**_So old in my shoes_**

**_And what I choose is my voice_**

**_What's a boy supposed to do?_**

**_The killer in me is the killer in you_**

**_My love_**

**_I send this smile over to you_**

****

~~~

_Later, that July_

_~~~_

"Hermione." 

She's sitting in Dumbledore's living room as I enter it for the first time. He has a castle too, but it's so unlike the Malfoy Mansion. It actually feels… warm. I can tell already he's the type that goes for quality rather than quantity. 

It hasn't really been long since I've last seen her, not at all… My sense of time is messed up, but I can't imagine it's been more than a month since she ran past me in the train station with only the briefest pause, when she clasped my hand and gave me… a bouquet. Acacia, azalea, lavender and white heather, and oleander. All surrounded by palm leaves and ferns. All miniature. She'd used a shrinking charm to get them to me discreetly. 

They still haven't wilted, and they're in my suitcase at this moment.

She looks up from a photo album, and smiles broadly.

I smile back. This is what my life has led up to.

Then I remember. I got her a flower, too, on my way from the Ministry.

I hold out the bouquet of roses, and out of the top of them peeks a spider flower. She stares at the spider flower for a while, then laughs and smiles up at me. It's a give-me-a-break smile, but she takes the spider flower and holds it tightly in her hand while we talk.

****

**_The killer in me is the killer in you_**

**_Send this smile over to you_**

**_The killer in me is the killer in you_**

**_Send this smile over to you_**

**_The killer in me is the killer in you_**

**_Send this smile over to you_**__

****

*******

**Fin**

*******

Disarm's by the Smashing Pumpkins. Awesome song, really powerful, really cool… not much else to say, except DOWNLOAD IT NOW! *grins sweetly*

Oh yeah, and Hermione's flowers mean: 

Acacia- Concealed love

Azalea- Take care of yourself for me

Lavendar Heather- Admiration and solitude

White heather- Protection, fulfillment of wishes

Oleander- caution

Palm leaves- victory

Fern- Magic, shelter, confidence

Draco's bouquet of roses means gratitude. *grin* I'm leaving it to you to find out what the spider flower means.


End file.
